In 1954 the Statute of the Kingdom of the Netherlands came into force. This document can be seen as an internal Treaty between the Netherlands (as a country in Europe) and its former colonies. Nowadays three countries are (internal) partners in the Kingdom of the Netherlands: the Netherlands, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. In 2005 new negotiations have begun for a new (internal) structure of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands Antilles will cease to be a country in the Kingdom and will be divided into two new countries Curaçao and Sint Maarten. The other remaining (small) islands Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba will be part of the territory of the Netherlands as specific judicial bodies as meant in article 134 Dutch Constitution. A huge diplomatic and judicial procedure has started. Although it is not certain yet, in 2009 it looks as though these plans and procedures will be realized in the very near future.

In this article four possible relations of the credit crunch and corporate crime are examined. A first relation is that cases of accounting fraud have contributed to the causation of the crisis. Due to these scandals the trust in large corporations and the financial sector would have been eroded. A second possible relation is the reverse: the crisis will lead to more corporate crime. Because of the crisis companies run into financial difficulties. In their despair they could try to cut costs by not complying with regulations or they could try to gain illegal profits through fraud. The third relation is the criminalization of more unethical corporate behavior. The moral outrage on the behavior of banks and insurance companies that contributed to the crisis might lead to an increased labeling of risky or greedy of corporate executives as crime. This will result in more regulation. The fourth and final relation is that these amplification effects will lead to the discovery of more corporate crime.